Maybe it's good to see how we came to the decision to treat early signs like we do. This is a bit of repetition what
@Hazardous said before and
@Fadingsuns said in the previous post as well.
First of all: we would have preferred to have kept the old signing system, where you can just sign once you left a game. However, this is not possible at the moment, so we need something else to regulate this. I think there are broadly 3 ways to deal with it:
1. Try banning all 'early signs' (before game ended)
2. Unvouch everyone who is unable to play within 5 minutes because they wrongfully signed.
3. Act on people who on purpose take risks and don't take others into account and excuse the others.
We decided to go for the 3rd option. #1 is for me not really an option, because it is not enforceable. Especially if people get sniped because some secretly sign 2,3 seconds too early, we are completely powerless.
We also decided not to go for #2 because we don't want to be unvouching people with no bad intentions. If you genuinely believe the game is over seeing the leaks, and you sign and you see you made a mistake, we find it too hard a penalty that you cannot play all evening anymore for that. It's an honest mistake, made possible by the non-optimal circumstances.
So in the end we chose option #3, to distinguish between people who take risks on purpose for their own sake (signing 2,3 levels early without knowing if it will end) and people who made an honest mistake signing. This is what
@FadingSuns for example did with da_pwnerer, when he let him sit out that game after pwnerer signed early for the 2nd time in one game.
There are pro's and con's to both #2 and #3, for example #2 is more clear, #3 is more fair that you don't get punished for a mistake, #2 gets 'well-intended' players unvouched #3 lets other players wait in lobby for long.
You can also say that no matter how 'sure' you are, you still take a risk by signing before the king actually died, so you can be punished for it. I am not insensitive to all those arguments, and there is a lot to say for #2 too, but this is the option we chose, as a decision between several choices which all had ups and downs. That is the decision of the mods, but if you think a majority of the people would rather have #2, you are welcome to do a poll about it, and I will have no problems carrying out #2 if it turns out most people prefer that.
You don't stop playing because you grow old; you grow old because you stop playing.
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